Taiwan’s Formosa shuns spot naphtha purchase despite refinery outage

02 August 2011 04:07[Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS)--Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp (FPCC) will not seek spot naphtha imports for September delivery because of a major cracker turnaround next month and the uncertainty over the restart period for a smaller cracker, traders familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.

This follows a fire that prompted a full-scale shutdown of its 540,000 bbl/day refinery at Mailiao, the traders added.

FPCC plans to go ahead with the turnaround of its 1.2m tonne/year No 3 cracker by the middle of the month as scheduled despite the fire at a pipeline at its Mailiao refinery over the weekend.

It was not immediately known when the company will be able to restart the 700,000 tonne/year No 1 cracker, which has been shut since 12 May.